Tag Archives: taxi

The Oxford Word of the Month is written by members of the Australian National Dictionary Centre and published each month by Oxford University Press Australia. Each Word of the Month looks at an Australian word or term in some detail, providing a history of the term and its role in current Australian society. If you wish to receive Word of the Month by email you can subscribe at the Oxford University Press Australia website.

Our Word of the Month for October 2015 is ‘flagfall’: 1. an initial minimum hiring charge for a taxi, as part of the overall fare. 2. a fixed initial charge incurred when making a call on a mobile phone. The term derives from the small mechanical lever, a flag, which early taxis used to indicate if the taxi was for hire. While the taxi sense of ‘flagfall’ dates to the early 20th century, the mobile phone sense is recorded from the 1990s. You can read the full Word of the Month inPDF form on our website or read it in an online format at the Oxford University Press Australia website.